It’s one of the hallmarks of our times that state violence and conflicts often take place in front of running news cameras. Such was the case in 2014 when CNN captured the shooting of two teenagers during protests outside of a prison on the occupied West Bank by an Israeli soldier, who claimed “only” to be using rubber bullets instead of live ammunition. To prove him wrong, the human rights organization Defence for Children International contacted Forensic Architecture, an agency that undertakes advanced architectural and media research, which, in turn, worked with sound artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan to investigate the incident. His audio-ballistic analysis of the recorded gunshots provided pivotal evidence. A little over a year later, he returned to the case in his video Rubber Coated Steel, presenting his own somber version of a near-silent tribunal over yet another explosion of violence, captured in sound. After the screening, Lawrence Abu Hamdan discusses the role of acoustics in reference to migration, citizenship and state violence in his own artistic practice.

Lawrence Abu Hamdan is a Beirut-based artist and a PhD candidate at Goldsmiths College London. Recent solo exhibitions include Earshot at Portikus in Frankfurt and Taqiyya at Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, amongst others. His works have been shown at the Shanghai Biennial, MACBA in Barcelona, Tate Modern in London, the Beirut Art Center and the Taipei Biennial.